


tell me you love me like you did before

by cryptidkidprem



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: First Kiss, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Tenderness, a perhaps excessive amount of hand holding and gentle loving touches, fuck the lonely all my homies hate the lonely, post-159/pre-160
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23750860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidkidprem/pseuds/cryptidkidprem
Summary: Jon swallows, taking a moment to map out and memorize Martin’s face all over again. He looks… exactly the same, in all the ways that matter. The evidence of what he’s been through is there (he looks so tired, the dark circles under his eyes practically have their own dark circles), but he is still, without a doubt,Martin.“What’s that look for?” Martin asks him.“I missed you,” Jon answers easily.“Oh.” With his free hand, he reaches out, cups Jon’s cheek. “I missed you too.”
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 75
Kudos: 492





	tell me you love me like you did before

The Lonely is… cold.

Not a bitter, biting cold, not a cold that assaults you head-on, but a more insidious kind. It seems so mild at first, so — gentle, Martin called it gentle, and it’s the only word that fits. It’s the kind of cold you don’t notice until you notice, but when you finally _do_ , your bones are already aching and your muscles are frozen and you can barely move. It makes it feel like the only option is just to stay there, just to lie down and accept it.

Jon doesn’t notice how cold he is until he finds Martin, and suddenly it’s warm again, like the sun has come out, warmth flowing through his veins.

Jon takes Martin’s face in his hands, begs him to come back to him, to see, and Martin… Martin does. He comes back to Jon, slowly and then all at once, quiet disinterest and pale gray fading away to blotchy, tearful cheeks and something that looks like a kind of hopelessly anxious relief.

No longer echoing like the memory of someone Jon used to love, very real and solid under Jon’s hands, Martin shakes. Jon feels it all the way from his palms down his arms and into the very core of him. He shakes, and whether it’s from the cold or the sudden lack thereof or something else entirely, he lets Jon pull him close, standing on his toes so he can wrap his arms around Martin’s neck, lets Martin hide his face in his neck.

They shouldn’t stay here; Jon knows they should leave, and soon, but the power of the Lonely feels like nothing with Martin’s body pressed flush against his, like all the chill and the static fog is very far away. It’s just them; together, not alone, utterly known and seen despite what _Lukas_ might think — _have thought_ , Jon corrects with grim satisfaction.

It’s Martin who starts to pull back first and Jon… Jon can’t stand to let him slip away again, so he doesn’t. He slips his hand into Martin’s and grabs hold, keeps Martin’s fingers held tight in his own.

Jon swears the fog is thinner, thin enough to see through, meek and fading in the face of real connection. Even the warmth he feels spreading out from their joined hands helps keep the cold at bay. The smile Martin gives him, even though it’s shaky and unsure of itself on his face, is warm enough to chase away the remaining chill all together.

“I-I was all on my own,” Martin says, a quaver in his voice. He’s crying, and Jon wants to do anything to fix it, but crying is better than— than that awful nothingness Peter had left him with.

“Not anymore,” Jon promises, “Come on. Let’s go home.”

“How?” Martin asks.

“Don’t worry.” Jon squeezes his hand. “I know the way.”

Martin doesn’t even question him. He just trusts him, like no one else has in… he can’t remember how long.

Jon doesn’t want to let Martin out of his sight; he wants to keep holding and looking so Martin doesn’t vanish again, but he has to get them home. He has to get Martin out of here, so he makes sure Martin’s hand is held securely in his own before they go.

Even with the steady, reassuring pressure, Jon can’t help stealing glances at Martin every few seconds, making sure he’s still real and solid beside him and hasn’t faded into mist or fallen back into that hollow numbness.

Every time he does, Martin is looking back at him.

The Lonely felt… endless when Jon first came in, thick fog and distant waves giving the impression that you could just keep walking forever and still find more of the same, monotonous and cold and empty, the world just out of reach.

It’s not like that anymore. Jon can see ( _See_?) the way out as clearly as if someone had written it in big bold letters on the ground. It’s just… back the way he came and a little to the left. The fog, which used to cling to him with every step he took, thins until it’s barely more than mist in the air, the sand beneath their feet fading from gray to black and then suddenly it’s not sand at all. Distant waves crashing fade into the sounds of distant traffic, and finally, finally, with one final step, taken side by side, hands clutched tight enough to nearly cut off circulation, Jon leads Martin out of the Lonely.

A handful of facts clamber for attention at the forefront of Jon’s mind: the fact that they’re not in the Institute, that Jon doesn’t actually even know where they are, the fact that it’s full dark out now when it was barely mid-afternoon when Jon first went into the Lonely, the fact that there might still be any number of monsters hunting him even now.

And these are all quite important issues, issues that need addressing, and _soon_ , but none of them seem important because the second they step out of the Lonely, Martin sucks in a sharp breath, and his hand, if possible, tightens against Jon’s.

Jon, drawn to Martin like a magnet, even after all these months, turns to him instantly. “Martin?”

And Martin, so distant for months, turns back to him. His eyes are wide, and soft, and even illuminated only by dull yellow streetlights, the same soft brown Jon’s become so familiar with over the years.

“Jon,” Martin breathes, voice cracking.

“Are you—” Stupid question. Jon stops himself. Of course he’s not alright; neither of them are alright. “Is something wrong?” _Besides the obvious_.

Martin gives his head a jerky shake. “No. Yes. I—” Jon wraps his free hand around Martin’s, too, holding it between both of his, holding on. _I’m here, I’m here, I’m here with you_. “It’s _so much_ ,” Martin finally says.

“Is that. Is that good or bad?”

“Both?” Martin answers weakly.

Jon brings their joined hands up to his chest, cradles them there over his heart, like he can keep them safe this way. Martin shudders under his touch, but… seems to calm a bit. 

He wants to pull them up to his lips, kiss Martin’s knuckles, his palm, every one of his fingertips. He refrains, if only so as not to overwhelm Martin. (Or himself; he might just get lost entirely if he finally let himself start to show Martin all the affection he deserves, all the affection Jon’s been desperately wanting to show him.)

“Do you— Can I do anything?” Jon asks.

Martin’s quiet for a moment. “We’re—” He shakes his head. “We’re really...”

“We’re out, Martin,” he promises. “We’re okay.”

( _For now, anyway_ , he doesn’t say.)

Jon watches soft, brown eyes go misty again, this time with unshed tears and not any kind of Lonely fog.

“We’re at my flat,” Martin says, startled.

Jon blinks. “What?”

Martin points behind Jon with his free hand, and Jon turns, following his line of sight to a nondescript apartment building across the street.

“This is where you live?” Jon asks, turning back to Martin, who nods at him.

It’s strange; Martin is… easily the most important person in Jon’s life, currently, the person he’s spent so much of his time worrying and wanting and aching for over the past year. He takes up so much space in Jon’s heart it makes his chest feel crowded, and yet, somehow Jon’s never actually been to Martin’s flat. Before now he didn’t even know where he lived. He doesn’t even recognize the street, not a part of town he visits often enough to familiarize himself with.

And yet somehow, the Lonely spit them out _here_. Jon had wondered, had worried where they might end up. He’d feared they’d just pop back into the Panopticon, or the Institute.

But, Jon had said _let’s go home_ , and maybe it was his Sight, or maybe it was just how the Lonely works when faced with something too big and too bright to contain, but all he’d had to do was think of _home_ and it had taken him right to Martin.

It makes sense, in a way, when he thinks about it.

Jon actually manages a smile, sincere even in its shakiness, some of the weight lifting off his shoulders. “Oh. Well, let’s… That is, shall we, shall we go up?”

Martin nods, and does his level best to return Jon’s smile. (And, _good_ _lord_ Jon’s missed that smile. He can’t remember the last time he saw Martin smile properly before today. Not since before the Unknowing, he thinks.)

Jon has no clue how late it is, but it’s dark, and there’s no one else out. They’re in a quiet part of the city, and the only cars on the streets are parked and silent. Still, Jon diligently looks both ways before leading Martin across the street by their still-joined hands.

The door to the lobby squeaks a little, like it’s not been looked after particularly well, but the lobby is well-lit, clean, and heated, so the wait for the lift is not unpleasant. Even the silence feels comfortable. Or maybe it’s just that Jon’s finally got Martin here with him, and the residual discomfort of being kept apart from him has finally faded.

Jon presses the button for the fourth floor without having to be told. He’s trying not to Know too much, but Martin doesn’t seem to mind, so he lets it go.

They reach Martin’s door, and Martin’s hand shakes so hard he nearly drops his keys. Silently, Jon thinks he’d have an easier go of it with both his hands free, but he still doesn’t let go. (Jon’s not about to let go until Martin does; if Martin doesn’t want to be alone, Jon will keep holding onto him until the world turns to dust and ash around them both if he needs to.)

Instead, he wordlessly passes them to Jon.

Jon takes the keys from Martin with his free hand, and he either guesses which key opens the front door first try or he just Knows that, too, but either way they’re inside and they’re safe and that’s all that matters.

Only when they’re inside, with the door shut and locked safely behind them and all the lights on, does Martin finally let him go. He leans back against the closed door, shoves his glasses up into his hair and buries his face in his hands, letting out one long, shuddering breath.

“Sorry, I’m— Sorry,” Martin says into his fingers.

“Martin, you don’t— It’s _fine_ ,” Jon says.

“It’s just… everything’s so… _muted_ in the Lonely, you know?” Martin finally looks back at Jon, and his eyes are so soft when they meet Jon’s again he just wants to live in that gaze for awhile. “It was nothing, and it was quiet, and then suddenly we were just— _Not there_ anymore, and it was. It was a _lot_ , all at once.”

“Really, it’s alright, I understand,” Jon tells him, stomach flipping. He does not miss the hollow, dispassionate way Martin spoke in the Lonely, like Peter had stolen all the hope and kindness and love that makes Martin _Martin_. He’s never been good at this stuff, at the comfort, the reassurance, but for Martin he’ll try as hard as he can. “Is there. Is there anything I can do?”

Martin’s hands fall to his sides. Jon wants to reach for him again, flexes his hands at his side to fight the impulse. He’s always reaching towards Martin these days, it feels like.

It’s just, well. Now that Jon’s finally been allowed to hold onto Martin, he feels like he never wants to let go. He feels the lingering presence of Martin’s palms against his own — even the one scarred to near ruin and left with barely any sensation by Jude Perry.

“Christ, do you know what time it is?” Martin asks.

“Um.” Jon pulls his phone out of his pocket, but it’s dead and won’t turn on. He casts a look around, spots a vintage-looking analog clock on the wall. “Nearly half-ten.”

Martin sighs. “D’you think anyone’s still delivering? I don’t think I’ve had anything to eat all day.”

Jon hasn’t either, but that’s not exactly unusual for him. “I’m sure we can find something.”

Martin nods. “I haven’t got anything in. Can we just, like, order a pizza, or something?”

“My phone’s dead,” Jon answers.

“Mine too, probably,” Martin guesses. He heaves a sigh, and manages to pull his phone out of his back pocket. “Yeah,” he says. “Figured.”

“Have you got a charger?”

“Somewhere around here,” Martin says. He pushes himself away from the door, trailing his hand over Jon’s shoulder as he passes, sending a shiver across Jon’s skin and making his chest ache with the phantom of something that feels almost _domestic_.

Jon’s eyes stay locked on Martin, rooted to the spot and helplessly transfixed, as he roots around the living room, finally pulls a cable out from under a rumpled cardigan discarded on the couch. 

“There we go,” Martin says, holding it up to Jon with another  tentative, crooked smile, which Jon can’t help but return. “Oh, hey, do you mind getting the heat? The thermostat’s by the light switch. It’ll get chilly in here.”

“Oh. Sure.” Jon turns the heat up, setting it perhaps a little higher than he would normally find comfortable. He’s still thinking of creeping, bone-chilling cold fog, and he wants things to feel as un-lonely as possible.

Martin shoves the cardigan onto the floor and takes the seat it was formerly occupying on the couch, plugging his phone into an outlet on the wall beside it. Jon watches him shut his eyes and drop his head back against the wall, watches his arms curl around his middle, fingers hooking into the corduroy fabric of his jacket and kind of… stares at them for a moment.

It takes him a moment to realize Martin’s opened his eyes again, but when Jon looks up, Martin is looking right back at him. Jon’s cheeks heat up, and Martin’s face softens almost unbearably. 

Martin holds a hand out. “C’mere?”

Jon does not need to be asked twice. He crosses the room in three quick strides and slips his hand back into Martin’s, lets Martin pull him down onto the couch next to him.

There’s a certain comfort, just to sit here and share the same space, and they both take a handful of seconds to revel in it. Monsters and statements and fear are forgotten for the time being; Martin is right here, and his couch is quite comfortable.

Martin picks his phone up with his free hand once it’s got enough juice to actually turn on, taps in his password one-handed. 

“Do you… want your hand back?” Jon asks.

“Nope,” Martin tells him simply.

So Jon keeps holding onto Martin’s right hand while he searches through his phone with his left thumb until he finds the number he’s looking for.

“Any preferences?” Martin asks him after a moment. 

“Hm?”

“For the pizza,” Martin clarifies. “What toppings do you like?”

“Right,” Jon says, “Er. Doesn’t matter. Whatever you like, really.”

Martin frowns at him, a little furrow appearing between his brows that Jon fixates on. That hadn’t been there pre-Unknowing, but it’d been there almost every time he and Martin spoke these past few months. Jon feels a familiar urge to smooth it away with his thumb. Or a kiss. 

Someday.

“Jon,” Martin says.

“Martin,” Jon responds. “I really don’t care. I’ll be fine with whatever. I’m not trying to be self-sacrificial, I just genuinely don’t mind.”

“Okay.” The furrow relaxing on its own. “So, what, if I ordered olives and anchovies and pineapples, you’d still eat it?”

Now it’s Jon’s turn to crinkle his nose. “Now, I wouldn’t go that far.”

Martin laughs. An actual laugh, with no pain or bitterness behind it. “So you do have a limit.”

It’s a miracle Jon manages to get any words out; he’s a bit stunned. He clears his throat. “I’m still a somewhat sensible person, Martin.”

“So just tell me what you’d prefer before I end up ordering… plain cheese or something and disappointing us both.”

Jon shrugs. “Nothing wrong with plain cheese. I like cheese pizza.”

“Oh.” Martin softens visibly. “We can get cheese.”

“We don’t have to,” Jon says, “if you’d like something else, that’s—”

“No, no, Jon. I like cheese, too. It’s alright,” Martin is quick to assure him.

So Jon lets it drop. Compromise. That’s what people who love each other do, right? “Alright,” he says.

“Alright.” Martin squeezes his hand.

Martin dials, relieved when he finds out delivery goes till midnight, places the order and gives them his address. Jon runs his thumb idly over Martin’s knuckles and waits patiently for him to hang up.

Martin sets his phone aside and turns to look at Jon. “Pizza’ll be here in twenty,” Martin tells him.

Jon hums in acknowledgement, holding Martin’s eyes. A comfortable silence falls. They turn towards each other, sitting sideways and curling towards each other, hands held loosely together between their parenthetical bodies.

Jon swallows, taking a moment to map out and memorize Martin’s face all over again. He looks… exactly the same, in all the ways that matter. The evidence of what he’s been through is there (he looks so tired, the dark circles under his eyes practically have their own dark circles), but he is still, without a doubt, _Martin_.

“What’s that look for?” Martin asks him.

“I missed you,” Jon answers easily.

“Oh.” With his free hand, he reaches out, cups Jon’s cheek. “I missed you too.”

Now that they’re out of the Lonely, away from that creeping, insidious chill, Jon can feel the way Martin’s fingers are cooler than they ought to be. Not that Jon has had much opportunity to touch them before today, but the lingering iciness is obvious now, even with the way the touch seems to light Jon’s face on fire, sending sparks across his skin. (In a good way; he’s had his skin set alight for real, and it’s nothing like this.)

“Thanks for coming for me,” Martin murmurs, “thanks for, for not giving up on me.”

Something inside of Jon tightens uncomfortably. “There wasn’t any other choice to be made. Not for me.”

“I suppose not,” Martin agrees, and Jon can’t tell what exact emotions lie behind the words, but there’s something harrowing there.

There’s so much Jon wants to ask him, so much he wants to say, big and small and everything in between. He wants to talk about the serious things (like Martin’s mum’s funeral and Melanie quitting and losing Daisy and what it was like for Martin working with Peter Lukas), and about the things that are less serious (like gossiping about Melanie apparently dating Jon’s ex, or the way Jon’s had to switch to coffee since the coma because Basira and Daisy were sick to death of hearing him moan about the tea not being right since Martin left.)

Jon wants to tell Martin that he meant it, when he asked him to quit and run off with him. That even if he’d been terrified at the prospect of losing his eyes and going blind, he wasn’t just looking for a way out of it. If Martin had said yes, he would’ve done it. If Martin had agreed, the rest wouldn’t have mattered, because they could’ve figured it out _together_.

He’s missed a lot in a year, and he wants to share all of it with Martin, but now is hardly the time. Martin looks more exhausted than Jon has ever seen him. They have plenty of time to catch up now, don’t they?

So instead, what Jon winds up saying is, “I saw a spider a few weeks ago.”

Martin blinks, makes a face at him, bemused and surprised. “Oh?”

Jon nods. “It was on the wall of my office and it was huge and gray and I didn’t squish it.”

“… You didn’t?”

“I didn’t,” Jon confirms. “I dumped all the pens out of my mug and caught it and I slid a statement under it and carried it outside.”

Martin’s face shifts from bemused to something close to wonder. “Did you really?”

“Yes, I did,” Jon tells him, “because even though it was probably venomous enough to kill me with a single bite— and even if it wasn’t it was probably a spy sent by Annabelle Cane to ruin my life, all I could think about was how upset you looked the last time I killed one, before, before everything, so I didn’t kill it. I just thought…” He swallows. “I thought, if you’d been there, it might’ve made you happy that I took it outside instead.” 

There’s a moment, after Jon finishes, where nothing happens at all. And then Martin, beautiful, kind, _brave_ man that he is, leans forward and kisses Jon.

And Jon… Jon just isn’t prepared, that’s all. All the times he’s imagined Martin kissing him, or imagined kissing Martin, the one thing he’s failed to plan for is what it would be like to actually happen outside his head.

He’s been so worried, so paralyzed with fear and want and desperation, he starets, flinching in his skin at the contact. It’s not even a voluntary reaction; it’s just. Well. When was the last time anyone kissed him? When was the last time anyone touched him, at all, without violent intent?

And, and anyway — Martin’s spent the last year isolating himself, and pushing Jon away anytime he tried to take a step closer. And Jon doesn’t— he very badly does not want to make this harder for Martin. He doesn’t want to fuck this up, the way he fucked things up with Tim, or with Melanie, or even with Georgie or Sasha.

Martin draws back. He tilts his head to the side, his eyes, almost impossibly warm even after everything, searching Jon’s face for something Jon’s not sure if he finds. “No?” He asks, quiet, gentle, as if Jon’s the one who needs looking after right now.

Jon sucks in a breath. “No,” Jon stammers, “I mean, _no_ , wait, n- _not_ _no_ , I—”

His heart hammers in his chest, and he feels… he’s not sure what he feels. A bit mad, probably. It’s just— Martin’s hand is on his cheek, and he’s close enough their knees are touching, and _Christ_ , really, this type of gentleness is not something Jonathan Sims _gets_.

This is… not how these things go, but here they are, going all the same, and Martin just bloody kissed him—

He sucks in a sharp breath. “You just… caught me off guard. Wasn’t, wasn’t expecting that.”

Martin’s cheeks go beautifully pink. Jon hadn’t realized, until all the color came back, how desaturated Martin’s been looking these past few months. He always used to flush quite easily, until _Peter_ got to him. Jon has really, really missed it.

“Right,” Martin says, a bit breathy. “S’pose I could’ve asked first.”

“I-it’s fine,” Jon assures him quickly, covering Martin’s hand on his cheek with his own. Whatever happens, he doesn’t want Martin to retreat any further. “You can, if you want. If you’re asking. T-the answer is yes. I-I just, I guess I thought—” He cuts himself off with a shake of his head.

“Thought what?”

“I, well. I don’t want to, to rush you, or anything. We only just got out, I suppose I thought, you might want, I don’t know, _time_ , or, or—”

“Jon,” Martin cuts him off, “stop.”

Jon stops.

Martin sighs, a gentle inhale, shaky on the exhale. “Can I tell you the worst thing about the Lonely?”

Jon almost stops breathing. “If you want to,” he says, making sure the Eye knows this has nothing to do with _it_ ; this is not a statement or a Compulsion, this is on Martin’s terms.

Martin nods, swallows. “It wasn’t just about being alone, y’know? It wasn’t just cutting myself off from, from people, from connection, from—” A beat. “From you. It was, it was that feeling of being surrounded by people but knowing I still had no one. It’s knowing that, that things’ll be easier to just let the world go on without me, that I should just disappear and keep to myself because at least then there’s no, no rejection, no pain, no fear. No one to worry about me, no one to hate me, but… No one to love me, either.

“I mean, for god’s sake, you were right down the hall from me! It would’ve taken me, I dunno, two minutes to get to your office, and I can probably count the number of times we’ve talked in the last year on one hand.” He closes his eyes, takes a breath, opens them again.

“So, no,” he says, and although his voice has started to shake, he pushes on. “I don’t want _time_. I’ve already wasted so much of it. I don’t want to look at you, six inches away from me, and dance around this for another damn _second_. You came for me, and you’re _right here_ , so I’m not going to let myself be afraid to reach out. Okay?”

Jon does not have an issue with that. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, that’s okay.” As if he hasn’t been aching for something like this for months. “Will you— that is, do you want to— kiss me again?”

“Would you like me to?” Martin asks, gently.

“ _Please_.”

So Martin leans forward again. There’s a beat — not a hesitation so much as the briefest of pauses — where Martin’s eyes dart down to Jon’s lips, and Jon takes that moment to swoop in and seal their lips together himself.

To his credit, Martin only lets out a little huff of air through his nose, and then he’s kissing Jon back.

Jon’s first thought is just a mild, extremely pleased, _oh_.

His next thought… doesn’t really come.

Martin’s hand is on Jon’s face one moment, and then the next it’s sliding into his hair, and Jon can’t decide where to put his own hands because he wants to put them everywhere at once and he can’t seem to make up his mind — which isn’t working very well at the moment, anyway.

He wants. He wants to curl up in Martin’s arms and live there for awhile.

He winds up holding Martin’s face between his hands, because he’s a little afraid anything else will be too much; every point of contact between them already feels like live wire against Jon’s skin.

Besides, Jon thinks he could use his hold to shift their positions a bit and deepen the kiss.

He shifts his hands, but before he can do anything else, Martin pulls backwards, and Jon’s lips feel outrageously bereft at the sudden absence of Martin’s against them. Embarrassingly, he makes a soft noise of protest somewhere deep in his throat, and it takes him a few seconds before he can open his eyes.

The way Martin is _looking_ back at Jon makes his heart beat so furiously against his chest Jon almost wants to press a hand over it to stop it from just breaking right out of his ribs.

“I-is everything alright?” He manages to stammer.

“Yes,” Martin tells him, in a tone that, while nearly indescribably fond, leaves no room for argument. “Just… Wow. Look at me. I’m _kissing Jon Sims._ ”

Jon would scowl, but he doesn’t quite have it in him. “Well, not _anymore_ ,” he complains.

Martin laughs, and this laugh is… new. Bright, loud, and so earnestly happy it takes Jon’s breath away. “I used to daydream about this, you know?”

Jon flushes furiously. “R-really?”

Martin hums, nods. “Oh, all the time. My work really suffered for it, honestly.”

Jon opens his mouth to say… something, he’s not really sure what, but what winds up coming out instead is: “I love you.”

It’s not like it’s news to either of them (or at least, he hopes it’s not — god, he _hopes_ Martin knows how he feels. Can’t imagine how anyone could’ve missed it, he’s practically been screaming it at the universe for half a year), but it’s the first time he’s actually said it aloud.

“I know.” Martin smiles at him. “Never would’ve made it out of the Lonely otherwise, would we?”

“No, I suppose not,” Jon agrees, and now he’s smiling, too.

Martin sighs contentedly. He shuts his eyes, brushes his thumb idly over the back of Jon’s neck, and Jon’s world very nearly narrows down to just that point of contact, that one soft little movement.

“Jon,” Martin all but whispers after… Jon can’t honestly be sure how long.

Jon’s eyelids flutter open (when did he close them?) to find Martin’s smile has faded to something quieter, softer.

“Mm?”

“You know I love you, too, right?”

Jon nods. “Yes. I do.”

And he does. He _knows_ that, lower-case-k, somewhere in the deepest, most human part of himself. Martin’s right; Jon read Herman Gorgoli’s statement, and Andrea Nunis’s, listened to Naomi Herne’s right from the source. There’s no way he and Martin ever could’ve made it out of the Lonely without _love_.

And, yes, he knows Martin wasn’t himself in the Lonely, knows it sucked everything out of his heart and left only a gnawing absence in its place. But _still_ … There’s a part of him that had thought, what if he really missed his chance?

What if Martin really had given up on him?

So yes, Jon knows Martin loves him, but there’s still a sharp spark of relief hearing it said out loud. “Still nice to hear, though,” he adds.

Martin nods. “Jon?” He says again, this time with a wavering undercurrent of uncertainty.

Jon, in turn, tries to affect his voice to be as gentle as possible. With Martin, it’s surprisingly easy. “Yes, Martin?”

Martin steels himself, working up his courage. “You— Will you. Will you stay? With me?”

Jon is caught completely off guard. Not because of what Martin’s said, but just because… he’d assumed that was a given. The idea of letting Martin out of his sight again is unthinkable.

“Of course, Martin,” he says, “as long as you’ll let me stick around, I, I’m right here. With you.”

“ _Let you_ —” Martin huffs. “Jon. Please don’t go anywhere.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Not unless you’re coming with me,” Jon assures him, a little desperate, just needing Martin to understand. “I promise.”

This time, Martin kisses him. No hesitation, no waiting, just leans in and presses his lips to Jon’s, wrapping his arms around Jon’s neck and pulling him close.

Jon folds himself into Martin’s hold and makes himself right at home with his own hands sliding down to Martin’s shoulders, his arms, and finally wrapping around his back so Jon can hold onto him, which he plans to do until their pizza arrives and they have to part to eat.

Maybe he has no right to feel as good as he does. Outside of this precious little bubble carefully constructed from their arms around each other, things are completely — possibly irreparably — fucked up, and Jon has no idea what kind of travesty awaits him after the mess Lukas and Magnus made earlier today.

But none of that feels as important as this: the fact that Martin loves him, and he loves Martin, and there is not a force on this planet, human or otherwise, that could manage to tear Jon away from him again. The fact that this, the holding and the snogging and the shared body heat is the most _human_ Jon has felt in months.

So, yes. Maybe Jon has no right to be this pleased, this _relieved_ , but after the day (the week, the month, the _year_ ) he and Martin have had, he figures they have earned this comfort a million times over, so he will be damned if they don’t get just one night to feel it anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> pls note neither i nor martin have anything against pineapple on pizza. anchovies and olives might be the devil's work but pineapple slaps and i'm inclined to think martin would agree with me for projection reasons. i feel like jon is the type to eat an entire potato raw without really noticing it's not an apple so i think he really might eat any topping. they're just flirtng.
> 
> thanks so much for reading !! hope u enjoyed it !! i'm on tumblr [@nogenders](https://nogenders.tumblr.com/) !! come say hi !!
> 
> title comes from 'backbeat' by dagny


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